There has been conventionally proposed, as in patent document 1, etc., a method of using an index file to simply find out a desired file out of a multiplicity of content files recorded on a large-capacity recording medium.
The index file is constituted by or produced with a set of attribute information of content files. The content-file attribute information includes, for example, thumbnail image data, title text data, photographic date, codec information and face-detected information (detected facial size, detected face position, detected face score as a digitization of detected face). However, the attribute information is not limited to those.
In a recording apparatus for recording an index file, together with a content file, onto a recording medium, when an imaging result, for example, is recorded as one content file onto the recording medium, the index file recorded on the recording medium is updated correspondingly to the recording of the content-file.
Meanwhile, in the recording apparatus, even when the content file recorded on the recording medium is deleted, the index file is updated correspondingly to the deletion of the content file.
In this manner, in the recording apparatus for recording an index file together with a content file onto the recording medium, when there is a change in the content file recorded on the recording medium due to recording or deletion of a content, update is carried out on predetermined information of the index file being recorded on the recording medium thereby to make the index and content files matching.
In the meanwhile, by applying the foregoing index file to a portable digital still camera, a camcorder or the like, even where a multiplicity of content files are recorded onto one recording medium, a desired content file can be positively found out of the multiplicity of content files with ease. This increasingly improves the usability.    [Patent Document 1] JP-A-2004-227630